Today being the first day of the month-long spring turkey hunting season, much of the outdoor media attention is being drawn to that, but least we forget, this Saturday ushers in the opening of fishing season for several highly popular fish species. While I enjoy spring gobbler hunting as much as anyone, I also make sure I salvage as much free time as possible in May to enjoy what arguably is the best fishing of the entire year.
With the exceptions of black bass and purebred musky – both of which's seasons open in June – the open seasons on everything else that swims in fresh waters is open now. What makes May such an excellent month for fishing for these species is the conditions for successfully catching them is as good as it will be just about all year. Several species recently finished their annual spawning cycles, and they will be actively feeding now to regain the weight they lost while spawning. Pike, walleye, pickerel and yellow perch are all spring spawners and also favorites of anglers. And fishing for them will be about as good as it gets for the next month or so.
Although I often say that I “never met a fish I didn't like to catch,” I have to admit that walleye are my favorite in May, with trout coming in a close second. With abundant numbers of 'eyes finning in all our local rivers, availability is never a problem. The Chenango, Unadilla, Susquehanna, Butternut Creek, and Lower Otselic River all harbor good numbers of walleye. I'd hazard a guess that for sheer numbers, the Chenango gets the nod for the highest densities, with the Unadilla coming in a close second. The closest still waters that hold walleyes are Canadarago, Whitney Point, and Oneida lakes.
Being little more than an oversized version of a yellow perch (and actually a member of that family), walleye are not all the difficult to catch. They'll readily gobble up a fat night crawler, shiner, leach, crayfish, hellgramite and a wide assortment of artificial lures that imitate these foods. The key is knowing where the fish are holding. Like the old real estate saying, it's all about location, location, location. Since walleye prefer deeper, slower currented water and especially if they offer overhead shade, once you find one, there'll normally be others in the same pool or immediate area.
Many think of April as the primary trout fishing month, but May is actually a better time to fish for, or rather to catch, some larger specimens of the trout family. While brook trout are just about always willing to bite anything that remotely resembles food, brown trout, especially the larger ones, tend to be warier and less eager. Also, browns are more active as water temperatures rise. Couple this with the fact that an abundance of aquatic insect hatches occurs in May, and you have the makings of some great trout fishing opportunities. Many smaller area brooks and tributaries hold brookies, while the larger streams such as the Otselic, Genegantslet, Bowman, Fly Meadow, Fly, Shawler, Wharton, lower Canasawacta, and upper Chenango River offer angling for larger brown trout. If turkey hunters still have enough energy left after spending all morning in the woods, an afternoon of trout fishing can be a welcome change of pace.
Northern pike are a relative newcomer to our local waters, especially the Chenango River. Prior to the mid Twentieth Century, if a person wanted to fish for pike, it meant a trip to waters farther north, primarily the Adirondack region. The first pike began showing up in the upper Chenango between Earlville and Sherburne around the early 1950s, supposedly the result of a dam of a fry-holding pond on the old Rogers Game Farm washing out and allowing the pike fry to escape into the river. Today pike are found throughout most of the watershed, from Poolville and Randallsville, all the way downstream to the Chenango's confluence with the other main Susquehanna river branches.
With the exception of carp and the occasional tiger musky, pike are the largest fresh water fish in our area. Although most of the ones caught from the Chenango run less than 30 inches long, there area enough larger specimens available that anglers hooking into pike of 10 pounds and over occurs with regularity. Any pike of that size or larger can be a handful, espcially with all the submerged trees and other snags that bigger pike like to use for ambush cover. I believe more large pike are lost this way, with the line breaking when caught around a snag, than when the pike's sharp teeth or gill-rakers cut the line. So it pays to have gear and line heavy enough to control any large pike the angler may hook. Although some large pike are caught on small lures and baits, the majority of the larger ones are taken on appropriately sized offerings. A rule of thumb for pike is they prefer prey that's about one-third their size. In other words, they like a big meal that will last a while.
When I was a kid, I cut my proverbial fishing teeth on pickerel and yellow perch. For a five-year old, any fish larger than a chub or pumkinseed sunfish was a monster. So when I found a two-foot long pickerel or humpback perch on the end of my frail line, I felt like Captain Ahab attached to old Moby Dick. Even today, I enjoy fishing for both of these fish. I just scale down the size of the tackle I use to fish for them. My favorite rig is an ultralight spinning outfit and four-pound test line, and with this outfit any pickerel or perch I hook feels much larger than it actually is ... and is more fun to bring to hand. I may keep a few perch for the table, but pickerel are so bony I seldom keep them. Guess I'm getting finnicky in my old age.
So even though spring gobbler hunting has gradually become the main event of May, don't forget that before there were turkeys around to hunt, May was the month that meant great fishing. It still does.